Category Archives: Book of Mormon

I just started a recent re-read of the Book of Mormon (separate from the nightly out-loud readings that my wife and I do) and noted (as usual) that Laban was given two chances to “do the right thing” with regards to the brass plates. I was also struck that Laban’s reaction the first two requests is disproportional to the request being made. Let’s look at this for a minute.

And we cast lots—who of us should go in unto the house of Laban. And it came to pass that the lot fell upon Laman; and Laman went in unto the house of Laban, and he talked with him as he sat in his house. And he desired of Laban the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass, which contained the genealogy of my father. And behold, it came to pass that Laban was angry, and thrust him out from his presence; and he would not that he should have the records. Wherefore, he said unto him: Behold thou art a robber, and I will slay thee. (1 Nephi 3:11-13)

Let’s make a few reasonable assumptions. Laban most likely knew who Lehi was — because they were related, because of Lehi’s wealth, and because of Lehi’s preaching. Laban, therefore, would have at least some idea who Laman was (Lehi’s oldest son and therefore heir). If Laban had a clear and indisputable right to the plates, he simply could have said “No” and sent Laman on his way, or he could have demanded some form of payment. Instead, he threatens to have Laman killed — just for asking about the plates.

The second attempt, based on Nephi’s idea, doesn’t go well, either.

And it came to pass that we went down to the land of our inheritance, and we did gather together our gold, and our silver, and our precious things. And after we had gathered these things together, we went up again unto the house of Laban.

And it came to pass that we went in unto Laban, and desired him that he would give unto us the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass, for which we would give unto him our gold, and our silver, and all our precious things. And it came to pass that when Laban saw our property, and that it was exceedingly great, he did lust after it, insomuch that he thrust us out, and sent his servants to slay us, that he might obtain our property. And it came to pass that we did flee before the servants of Laban, and we were obliged to leave behind our property, and it fell into the hands of Laban. And it came to pass that we fled into the wilderness, and the servants of Laban did not overtake us, and we hid ourselves in the cavity of a rock. (1 Nephi 3:24-28)

Again, Laban could have simply said “No” or he could have bargained for a greater payment than the sons of Lehi were offering (such as Lehi’s “land of inheritance”, which appears to be an estate somewhere outside of Jerusalem itself). Instead, he actively sends his servants to kill the sons of Lehi, while retaining the “gold, silver, and precious things” that the sons had brought.

In both cases, Laban does not act like a man who simply owns something precious (to him) and is unwilling to part with it; instead, he threatens murder the first time and clearly tries to carry it out the second time. (He may have tried to carry it out the first time as well, but that’s less clear from the text.) This suggests, at least, that Laban may have gained possession of the plates through unsavory means, and possibly that Lehi may have actually had a better claim to ownership (though we have no way of knowing that).

This also underscores that Laban had both a chance to do the right thing for the right reason and a chance to do the right thing for a less honorable reason. His violent reaction instead set up the circumstances by which he lost his own life.

One last note:

And after I had done this, I went forth unto the treasury of Laban. And as I went forth towards the treasury of Laban, behold, I saw the servant of Laban who had the keys of the treasury. And I commanded him in the voice of Laban, that he should go with me into the treasury. … And I also spake unto him that I should carry the engravings, which were upon the plates of brass, to my elder brethren, who were without the walls. (1 Nephi 3:20, 24)

Chances are that the “gold, silver, and precious things” of Lehi’s family that “fell into the hands of Laban” were in that same treasury as the brass plates. There is no indication that Nephi took a single item of that back, or anything else in Laban’s treasury, but only the brass plates. It’s unclear that Laman or Lemuel would have done the same thing; they were still longing after their “possessions” back in Jerusalem many years later (cf. 1 Nephi 17:21) and might well have felt the need to fill their pockets or a sack to get some of their own belonging back. But by not doing that, Nephi completed the transaction that he and his brothers had offered to Laban on the second visit and avoided becoming in fact the “robber” that Laban accused him and his brothers of being.

For the past few years, I’ve been honored to participate in the Interpreter Foundation Scripture Roundtable podcasts (videocasts, actually) as they cover each year’s Gospel Doctrine lessons. These roundtables are meant to act as aids for Gospel Doctrine teachers, their students, and frankly anyone else studying the scriptures.

We typically record them a few months in advance, so we have already recorded lessons 1-5 for the Book of Mormon course of study. Here are links to the two in which I’ve participated so far:

A close reading of the Book of Mormon shows a sophisticated restraint in its narrative approach, namely an absence of descriptions of events, conversations, and actions outside of the observation and knowledge of its claimed authors, contributors, and participants. Consider all the things that are not included in the Book of Mormon narrative and yet have a direct bearing on that narrative:

Any statements or actions by Laban outside of the presence of Nephi1 or his brethren.

Any descriptions of events at Jerusalem after Lehi and his family depart.

Any private conversations or actions between Laman and Lemuel outside of the presence of Nephi1 and/or Lehi.

Any description of events, conversations, or actions among the Lamanites during those periods of separation and tension (with a major exception that is the topic of this post).

Any description of events, conversations, or actions among “Gadianton’s robbers and murderers”, except for some details at its founding, at which time it had been infiltrated by one of Helaman2‘s servants (Helaman 2).

And so on.

Contrast this with various stories in the Old Testament, where we are given details outside of the scope of any reasonable narrator. A good example is the whole story of Balak and Balaam in the book of Exodus (unless one presumes Balaam was somehow interviewed about these events or wrote down a separate manuscript that came into the hands of the Israelites). There are similar out-of-view events and details in Judges, Samuel/Kings, Esther, and Daniel. One can argue that these are natural attempts to fill in narrative gaps or offer obvious explanations, but that makes the restraint in the Book of Mormon all the more remarkable.

However, as alluded to above, there is one apparent major exception: the detailed story of Amalakiah, which is covered in Alma 46 through 52.

As explained in Alma 46, Amalakiah is a powerful Nephite figure who seeks to be made king by force over the Nephites, replacing the system of judges established by Mosiah2 roughly 20 years earlier. Moroni1, military leader of the Nephites, rallies the Nephites who oppose this change. Moroni1‘s forces significantly outnumber Amalakiah’s forces; Amalakiah and his followers seek to flee to the land of Nephi to join up with the Lamanites; Moroni1 heads them off, but Amalakiah and “a small number of his men” escape to Lamanite territory, while the remainder of his followers are forced to either acknowledge the current government or be put to death (“and there were but few who denied the covenant of freedom”).

At this point, following standard Book of Mormon narration, we would expect to hear no more about Amalakiah except and unless he were to return to battle against the Lamanites. Compare, for example, the story of Zarahemna found in Alma 44, who after his defeat at the hands of Moroni1 swears an oath not to come to battle against the Nephites again, returns to the land of Nephi, and is never heard of after that.

But that’s not what happens. Instead, over the next few chapters, starting in Alma 47, we get a detailed inside look of how Amalakiah cleverly and ruthlessly works his way into being king over all the Lamanites. it really is a remarkable and very credible tale of sophisticated political intrigue; one seeking a naturalistic explanation for the Book of Mormon has to account how a 23-year-old farm boy with little education would think up such an approach, one that would likely earn a nod of appreciation from Greek playwrights and Roman historians, if not Machiavelli himself.

However, that is not the point. The point is that this detailed account is taking place outside of the on-going Nephite narrative context. Not only are the events taking place in the land of Nephi — at a time of hostilities with no major Nephite individuals present –but they are very intimate and secret details of Amalakiah’s intents and actions.

This appears to be a very deliberate insertion by Mormon, rather than necessarily part of the record being kept at this point by Helaman1 (see header to Alma 45). Note the introduction we get in Alma 47:1:

Now we will return in our record to Amalickiah and those who had fled with him into the wilderness….

The editorial “we” and reference to “our record” is used here and a few other places (3 Nephi 8:1, Moroni 9:33) as a indicator of either Mormon or Moroni2 speaking as editor. This suggests a narrative break from the events surrounding Amalakiah’s rebellion described in Alma 46. Furthermore, it appears that Mormon is deliberately setting up a contrast between Amalakiah’s duplicity, intrigue and murder in gaining the Lamanite kingship and Moroni1‘s personal righteousness and desire for freedom, since he follows the story of Amalakiah’s ascent immediately with the account of Moroni1‘s preparation for defense and his (Mormon’s) famous paean to Moroni1 , after whom he (Mormon) would name his own son (cf. Alma 48:16-18).

So, where did Mormon get these closely-held details? I suspect the answer is right there in Mormon’s introduction to this story: “those who fled with him in the wilderness”. These were also Nephites or, at least, of the land of Zarahemla (my personal suspicion, as some Book of Mormon scholars have speculated, is that Amalakiah and the “kingmen” followers were likely of the majority Mulekite population, unhappy at minority Nephite domination of government and religion; in any case, they were almost certainly not Lamanites).

Those who followed Amalakiah would have to be his most trusted confidants, since they are a group of Nephites deep in the heart of Lamanite territory. Furthermore, it makes the most sense that he would draw from this group the “servants” he uses to do his most dangerous and potentially damning work — first, poisoning Lehonti, the Lamanite army leader to whom Amalakiah had “surrendered”, and then slaying the Lamanite king and blaming it on the king’s own servants.

Now fast forward five or six years. Amalakiah, perhaps frustrated by the failures of his Lamanite military leaders (cf. Alma 49) and encouraged by the internal dissensions among the Nephites (cf. Alma 50), comes down in person at the head of the Lamanite armies, conquering a series of cities along the east sea (Alma 51). However, he presses his luck a bit too far, is stopped by Teancum (who is guarding Bountiful), and then is assassinated by Teancum at night, in his own tent, on the night before the first day of the new year (Alma 51:32-37). That account includes this statement: “he [Teancum] did cause the death of the king [Amalakiah] immediately that he did not awake his servants.” (v. 34)

Amalakiah’s servants are there with the Lamanite army. That army (led now by “Jacob, a Zoramite”) flees back to the city of Mulek and takes refuge there. They are subsequently lured out, engaged in battle, and defeated; those who are not killed in battle are taken captive and are put to work at hard labor, fortifying Bountiful and possibly other cities along the eastern seaboard, as well as building their own prison compound.

Among those captives are almost certainly some number of Amalakiah’s servants or close confidants, who would have detailed knowledge of Amalakiah’s actions since fleeing the land of Zarahemla. It is both credible and likely that one or more of those men would be willing to give Teancum or even Moroni1 the inside details about how Amalakiah had become king over all the Lamanites, likely in exchange for easier living conditions or possibly even a pardon and being sent back into Nephite society, much as many captured Lamanites were later granted to go live with the people of Ammon (cf. Alma 62:15-17). Furthermore, it is credible and likely that Moroni1 would want to know how Amalakiah had become king of the Lamanites, particularly since his brother Ammoron had become king after his death and sought to continue the conflict and hold onto currently occupied Nephite cities (cf. Alma 52:2-4).

So, as it turns out, the exception is not an exception at all, and the Book of Mormon retains its narrative consistency. While the record does not spell out exactly how the Nephites got the inside details of Amalakiah’s rise to power, it does provide the information to deduce how, why, and when they did so. Furthermore, Mormon himself introduces the narrative, suggesting that he may well have found it in a source outside of the Alma2/Helaman1 record itself, interleaving its events with that record to explain how this series of wars — which would stretch on for a full decade and cause tremendous destruction and upheaval — came to pass.

I have posted before about the parallels between Alma1 and John the Baptist, particularly with regards to (re)introducing baptism and establishing a “church of anticipation” prior to the Savior’s arrival into mortality. One of those parallels was that “the appearance of both John and Alma1 signals an abrupt break from the law of Moses/priestly tradition to a church of anticipation.”

What struck me the other day, though, was the difference in how they were received by those in charge of that priestly tradition. In the case of Alma1, we read:

And now it came to pass that when Mosiah had made an end of speaking and reading to the people, he desired that Alma should also speak to the people. (Mosiah 25:14)

And it came to pass that king Mosiah granted unto Alma that he might establish churches throughout all the land of Zarahemla; and gave him power to ordain priests and teachers over every church. (Mosiah 25:19)

Now king Mosiah had given Alma the authority over the church. . . .And [Alma] said unto the king: Behold, here are many whom we have brought before thee, who are accused of their brethren; yea, and they have been taken in divers iniquities. And they do not repent of their iniquities; therefore we have brought them before thee, that thou mayest judge them according to their crimes. But king Mosiah said unto Alma: Behold, I judge them not; therefore I deliver them into thy hands to be judged. (Mosiah 26:8-12)

And now it came to pass that the persecutions which were inflicted on the church by the unbelievers became so great that the church began to murmur, and complain to their leaders concerning the matter; and they did complain to Alma. And Alma laid the case before their king, Mosiah. And Mosiah consulted with his priests. And it came to pass that king Mosiah sent a proclamation throughout the land round about that there should not any unbeliever persecute any of those who belonged to the church of God. (Mosiah 27:1-2)

It is important to recognize the humility and inspiration of Mosiah2 (and his priests) through all this. His grandfather, Mosiah1, led the exodus of the righteous portion of the Nephites out of the land of Nephi and into Zarahemla, where he took over rulership of both his own people and the resident Mulekites. His father, Benjamin, gave his great sermon and prophecy of the coming Messiah — received from an angel! — to the assembled nation, putting the people under covenant to take upon themselves the name of Christ, and at the same time turning both secular and religious leadership over to Mosiah2. And Mosiah2 has been ruling over the combined kingdom ever since.

But here comes Alma1 out of the the land of Nephi, a repentant-but-formerly-wicked priest of wicked King Noah, preaching and baptizing and establishing “the church of God.” What does Mosiah2 do? He basically turns most, if not all, religious leadership over to Alma1. There is no envy, no struggle for control, no dismissal and “I’ll take it from here.” He recognizes with Alma1 — as John did with Jesus — that “he must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

Now, contrast this with reaction of King Herod (Antipas), the Jewish high priest Joseph Caiaphas, and the Sanhedrin in general to John the Baptist, and imagine this: what if King Herod and his priests (starting with Caiaphas) had been righteous enough, or at least sufficiently repentant, to do for John what King Mosiah2 and his priests did for Alma1? What would have been the reception of Jesus when He started His ministry there in Palestine?

I always treat articles like this — heck, just about any article (or, for that matter, paper) on Bible-related archaeological “findings” — with a spoonful of salt. That said, this is interesting:

Archaeologists Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily and Shua Kisilevitz, said, “The ritual building at Tel Motza is an unusual and striking find, in light of the fact that there are hardly any remains of ritual buildings of the period in Judaea at the time of the First Temple. Among other finds, the site has yielded pottery figurines of men, one of them bearded, whose significance is still unknown.”

“The iconography points to a pantheon of deities, as some scholars believe, or to two main deities, something of a duality,” says archaeology writer Julia Fridman, writing in Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

“Interestingly, there are vastly more female figurines and representations found on shrines than there are male ones. The evidence points to the worship of at least two deities. . . .

Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou of the University of Exeter said, “There is increasing evidence that the ancient Israelites worshipped a number of gods alongside their ‘national’ patron deity, Yahweh. The goddess Asherah was among these deities.

“Not only is she mentioned in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), but inscriptions dating to the eighth and seventh centuries BCE attest to her worship alongside Yahweh in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Taken together, the biblical and archaeological evidence strongly suggests that Asherah was worshipped by some Israelites as the wife of Yahweh. They were likely a divine couple at the head of the local pantheon.””

News of the impending publication reached Salt Lake City early in November, 1936. Alarmed, Heber J. Grant “immediately sent [Kelly] a cablegram” – not a slow-boat letter, but a lightning-fast cablegram! – “not to print that letter as we have reason to believe that statements made therein are not authentic.”

“We hope that the cablegram arrived in time to prevent your publishing the article,” President Grant wrote in a follow-up letter.

At last! One wise head, at least, was not mesmerized by the sensation. “We have reason to believe that statements made therein are not authentic.” (You think?) I do not find an article after a cursory search of Der Stern, but without a more careful search I cannot yet be certain whether the cablegram arrived in time.

This particular chain was not the story’s sole transmission route, of course. When each link in this chain proved so willing – eager, even – to share the story, there can be no doubt that each person in the chain shared the story with multiple others, not just those traced here. Some of those others must have shared it with still more contacts, who shares it with yet more … The fabulous rumor escaped into the wild, where it has spread like a malignant virus from missionary to missionary, seminary teacher to seminary teacher, one credulous soul to another, discovered anew by each generation, to the embarrassment of the Church and the annoyance of the Smithsonian Institution.

This is not true! Do not teach it!

Go read the whole thing. And remember: it is not true that the Smithsonian Institution ever used the Book of Mormon for archaeological purposes. Don’t teach it. ..bruce w..

So, the underlying question is: how many different (valid) ways could there have been of translating the urtext on the plates — not just in particular word choices, but in order and connection of thoughts? By all historical accounts, Joseph was clearly receiving the translation by inspiration — leaving aside the fact that he didn’t read the Nephites’ language, his translation appears to have been entirely via the interpreters and the seer stone.

I’m currently drafting some of the introductory material to my own book (an updated edition of The Art of ‘Ware) and called out a detailed example. Here are a few extracts from that introduction:

For example, consider the following relatively simple passage as found in Chapter 7 of Suntzu pingfa:

When you plunder the countryside, divide the wealth among your troops. [Sonshi]

In plundering the countryside, divide up your numbers. [Ames]

Invade a countryside and rule the people. [Huang]

When plundering the countryside, divide the multitude. [Denma]

When you plunder a district, divide the wealth among your troops. [Sawyer]

When plundering villages, divide the troops. [Zieger]

When pillaging villages, divide the spoils among the masses. [Mair]

I go on in my introduction to note:

Eight translators came up with at least three different meanings for this single four-character maxim. The closest to a majority translation is the idea of dividing up your troops to plunder the countryside, presumably to accomplish it more quickly. But three of the authors believe the maxim talks about spreading the looted wealth among the troops (or, at least “the masses”), presumably to keep them happy. The Denma Group tries to have it both ways; their actual translation (“divide the multitude”) is ambiguous, while their own commentary on the maxim says, “Disperse your troops and distribute the goods among them.” The immediate context where the maxim appears mostly favors the “divide the troops” translation, since it’s talking about terrain and positioning — but this same chapter has a lot of focus on supplies and logistics and the impact of a lack thereof, so there is a strong argument for the “share the wealth” translation.

This, I think, underscores the absolute necessity of direct and explicit divine inspiration in translating the Book of Mormon, especially if the language[1] on the plates was more logographic than alphabetic (which Mormon 9:33 seems to suggest). In other words, if someone were given the plates along with a multi-volume Nephite-English lexicon, it’s quite possible they would still come up with a translation that differed considerably from what Joseph Smith dictated to Oliver Cowdery and others — and two such translators would come up with translations that differed from each other’s. I think the Lord gave Joseph the translation that He wanted printed (though, as always, with human influences and errors along the way), and not necessarily a translation that any given ‘Nephite language scholar’ might have come up with.

For what it’s worth. ..bruce..

[1] Or languages. We tend to assume that Nephi and Mormon/Moroni wrote using the exact same language, but that’s a bit like assuming British authors from 1000 AD and Stephen King write using the same language; heck, they don’t even use the same exact alphabet (though one evolved from the other). It’s not at all clear that Nephi and his immediate descendants could have read, unassisted, what Mormon and Moroni wrote on the plates, or even understood what they might have spoken to them out loud. In that light, it is telling that the Book of Mormon talks specifically about literacy training among the ruling families to be able to read the older records.

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ADMINISTRATIVE NOTE FOR WORDPRESS BLOGGERS: early readers of this post saw that I had to use tone numbers for xiāng fēn (i.e., xiang1 fen1) because WordPress kept eating the Unicode pinyin characters for ā and ē. Searching on the web verified that the core problem was that the Fantastico installation of WordPress (by which I set up this blog) sets as its default character collation latin1_swedish_ci, whereas what I needed was utf8_unicode_ci. I used the pHpMyAdmin app available under CPanel to edit the WP databases and change the collation, but (a) they didn’t seem to be (all) changing, and (b) the pinyin characters kept getting eaten. What finally worked was the following:

Using phpMyAdmin, expand the list of database tables for this blog.

In that list, look for wp_posts; expand it, and expand Columns under it.

In Columns, look for post_content and click on it.

This brings up a set of fields for post_content, including one labeled Collation with a drop-down menu. Select utf8_unicode_ci (it was at the very end of my drop-down list) and click on the Save button on the far right.

That did the trick. I suspect it also allowed me to put in the Chinese characters I subsequently added.

The absoluteness of this doctrine is evil. If one does not accept Christ in the same manner of someone else, that individual is consigned to an eternal punishment in hell. Taken to its absurd conclusions, the vengeful God that hell-believers worship would consign to eternal torture an infinite amount of devout Mormons, Jews, Muslims, Seventh Day Adventists, Buddhists, and so on, who reject the entreaties of those who see only a narrow passage to heaven and a vengeful God punishing those who don’t “dot their i’s or cross their t’s.”

Doug has more to say, offering links to four films that actually depict the “sinners in the hands of an angry God” theology. Go read the whole thing.

[God’s] grace is not only greater than we imagine, it is greater than we can imagine. And however long or short our lives, God always has enough time to love us home.

The message of LDS doctrine is that it takes a very deliberate, determined effort to fend off God’s grace eternally; our salvation (after Christ’s atonement) results from informed choices we make, not upon chance, situation, or God’s arbitrary decisions. ..bruce..

A new two-volume Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics has just appeared from the venerable European publishing house E. J. Brill. It includes two articles requested by the editors from John A. Tvedtnes:

Listening to the Book of Mormon on my iPhone while driving the other day, the following passage came up:

And it meaneth that the time cometh that after all the house of Israel have been scattered and confounded, that the Lord God will raise up a mighty nation among the Gentiles, yea, even upon the face of this land; and by them shall our seed be scattered. (1 Nephi 22:7)

Now, here in the States, we Mormons hear “a mighty nation among the Gentiles” and start chanting “USA! USA!” But I don’t think Nephi is referring to the US at all. I think in this particular passage he is referring instead to the Spanish Empire. Here’s why:

The US really didn’t become a “mighty nation” until the late 19th or early 20th Century. Spain, on the other hand, established a global empire pretty much coinciding with the discovery (by Spain) of North and South America at the end of the 15th Century, and it remained a mighty nation well into the 19th Century.

Spain conquered and claimed half of North America, all of Central America, and most of South America, in the process killing, enslaving, and scattering many of the native American inhabitants. The US, at the time of publication of the Book of Mormon, occupied less than half of its current extent and really hadn’t done much “scattering” of native Americans compared to what Spain had done for the previous 240 years.

For that matter, much of the “scattering” of native Americans that happened in the eastern half of the United States happened under British rule (see “British Territory” on the map above), before the US was founded.

And, somewhat redundantly, the US never occupied Mesoamerica, which is where Book of Mormon events most likely occurred.

I’m certain this isn’t a novel thought, and I suspect that Latter-day Saints in Latin America have always assumed that 1 Nephi 22:7 referred to Spain; it would be obvious to them. Some might point to the phrase “raise up…upon the face of this land” as meaning the mighty nation has to originate in the Americas, but I don’t know that this carries a lot of weight. What made the Spanish Empire mighty was not the resources within the borders of Spain over in Europe, it was the tremendous wealth and resources that Spain extracted from the Americas. After all, if you saw the map below (Spanish Empire in 1800) without knowing any historical geography, would you assume that the Empire in red sprang from the small red area near the middle of the map, as opposed to the massive red areas near the left side of the map? Food for thought.